Among couples from two different cultures, I don’t know anyone who has completely left behind one culture and adopted the other- I’m sure they exist, I just don’t know any personally. Based on the people I do know, the topic of two cultures is a big one, something that both families living in Turkey and families living in the USA ponder, worrying if they’re doing the right thing, if they’re causing confusion in the child’s mind or personality, thinking what if they forget all this stuff or ditch them when they grow up, what if they experience identity crisis later and become unhappy…

And parallel to this is the topic of language. I think everyone who lives abroad gets pessimistic from time to time about their kids’ likelihood of adopting their parents’ mother tongue. Even when the home language is the language of the mom or dad, as the child grows up, he or she may prefer using the majority language. For example, in the US, there are a lot of kids who understand Turkish perfectly well but do not respond in Turkish, or respond only in rare circumstances. This is normal. But that doesn’t mean we let it be, just because it’s normal. I imagine dealing with this situation in Turkey being easier, considering the wide-spread acceptance and prevalence of the English language and its dominance in media products and pop culture. Gabbriell, one of the star interviewees in our film, says she lets her kids watch as much American TV as possible, for example. I’m sure this helps not only with language, but also with staying in touch with what’s happening on the other side.

Turkish parents living in the USA can and do do the same things, of course. Yet it’s not exactly the same, at least in my experience. Acquiring Turkish television feeds and other media products require a little more effort, money, and struggle. Even if we say “we’ll pay whatever it costs” (sorry, Turkish inside joke), considering that the things we want to bring home for our kids’ Turkish come not just as language but also bring perspectives, commentaries, stories, and characters, as well as commentary on the people who make these products, we find that it’s not that easy to get quality, Turkish-made media products that have good Turkish as well as good content, and are age appropriate. I’m not saying there isn’t any. But know that we get super excited when we find them. There are nicely translated and dubbed Disney movies, and Japanese etc. tv series, but .. it’s a bit weird. Why does Cinderella speak in Turkish, and why would a kid prefer to listen to Buzz Lightyear in Turkish when there’s the original English? Besides, watching translated American products doesn’t help on the culture front – the same messages, the same relationships, presented in two languages… Thank goodness for Pepe, but for how many more years are we going keep watching Pepe? I don’t know why there are so few Turkish made kids tv and movies. Why are there so few Turkish games and apps for kids? If homes in Turkey weren’t loaded with electronics, if little babies didn’t have cellphones, I’d say there just isn’t enough demand or numbers of customers. These questions lead to others about the traditional (and it seems, still current) ways that Turkish culture approaches children. We get weary, even though we don’t give up. We hold on those few good ones even tighter, and watch them over and over again. Fortunately, kids love repetition:)

If you’re wondering what this photo has to do with the subject, I’m getting to it. This is our non-technological, non-media based game with my daughter that we’ve been playing since she was about 4. One day, we drew eyes and mouths on our hands and played with them like puppets. She loved it. Since then, whenever we have a little free time on the subway etc, she gets her hand into this bird shape and calls out “Kuğu-kuğuuuu! (Swan-swan). Why kuğu-kuğu — because when she was little and we had just started playing this game, the first character was “civciv” (chick) which sounds like the same word repeated twice. So naturally, the other characters were named “güv-güv” (pigeon-pigeon) and “kuğu-kuğu.” As my little one grew, swan-swan and chick’s social circles, conversation topics, games they played also evolved, helping my daughter learn some of her newly vocabulary in Turkish as well as English. Lately, they’ve been planning a lot of parties, and they invented teleportation. So now they just teleport from home to home, party to party. Sometimes, a strange item falls into their world, such as an iphone. While they’re trying to figure out what it is, they play a little Doodlebuddy or have fun taking each others’ pictures, in the name of “scientific research”. And mama is happy, because “we played in Turkish for 5 more minutes, yayy!”

Sizde nasıl bu durumlar?

What’s the situation like for you?

As we talked about this past year and our wishes for the new year with Hilal, two themes emerged: love and dreams. Making “To Love, to Stay” (working title Turkish of the Bride) has given us the opportunity to get to know some wonderful people, and taught us much about ourselves as friends as well as filmmakers. We had an exciting year conducting interviews, going around Istanbul and NYC to record daily life and city scapes, planning our post-production, talking with musician friends about the soundtrack… The most exciting part of the year was when Hilal visited NYC and we got to actually work together, side by side, going out cameras and tripods in hand, to capture some of the endless source of stunning images and amazing stories that NYC has to offer. We’ve had a couple of setbacks as well, mainly not getting the grants we had applied for – which is also a valuable lesson about who has money for film and what kinds of projects they prefer to invest in. Another wealth this city has is the many talented people who love working behind the camera, and we are very fortunate to have received help from these generous souls, from the camera people and production assistants who donated their time for the project, to the experienced script supervisor and editors who reviewed our work and gave us feedback. Thanks to them, the film is ready for post, and we are now starting the most difficult part of our journey as filmmakers – the editing decisions. Editing is almost always the most critical part of making a documentary, and appropriately a huge consumer of time and mental power. Our co-directing and co-production approach means we don’t cut or alter a scene unless both of us are in agreement, which adds layers of complexity to the process. We are very happy we decided to make this film like this though, and the joy of creating together urges us to think about future projects we might tackle together.

In the light of all the fun and the not-so-fun stuff we went through, and what we learned from people who generously shared their stories or their expertise with us:

We wish everyone a year where they dream big, and get little victories along the way to help them stay positive.

May you all find harmony wherever you live, and be surrounded by love.

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life” said a wise woman. It’s one of my favorite quotes. Back to that after a quick news break:

We just changed the title of the documentary to “To Love, To Stay”, from its former working title “Turkish of the Bride.” Now we’re working on updating the various pages and sites with the new name. We hope the new title captures something that speaks to the emotional heart of our project, and frames the movie more generally than something that’s only of interest to Turkish viewers. What do you all think?

Ok, Thanksgiving:

The more I learn about the history behind it, the more complicated my feelings are about this holiday. But regardless of whether you’re a traditional Thanksgiving celebrator or not, I do believe that recognizing and expressing gratitude for whatever we are thankful for, is a powerful practice. As Thanksgiving feasts gave way to Black Friday shopping frenzy in the US, Hilal and I wonder how the Turkish-American families here and in Turkey are spending their “turkey day”. One thing many of the women we talked with say is how different special days and holidays feel when away from home. Some of us try to re-create special days just the way we remember them from our youth back home, while some of us have kept only a few important aspects of a holiday or family tradition, and do our best to honor what’s important in our cultures and customs.

Are you a Turkish woman living in America who has learnt to make cranberry sauce and smile politely at turkey stuffing jokes? Are you an American woman who is searching for the right fixin’s all over Istanbul to make the Thanksgiving dinner just right? Just enter your thoughts in the comments and I’m sure your words will resonate with many others who have tasted the bitter-sweet moments of celebrating special days in a culture that doesn’t know anything about them.

I hope this doesn’t start looking like a food blog, after Sarah’s cookies, and now my cranberry sauce! 🙂

It’s been a very intense and interesting time since our last post, to say the least. I’ve been glued to news and updates from Turkey, while Hilal has been in the thick of it all in istanbul. You can imagine the mix of worry, excitement, sadness and hope that’s been engulfing me, and other Turkish people living here, watching and following from far away. It’s hard to not be there when you really, really want to be, isn’t it? Wherever “there” is, that you feel that strong connection with.

So with that, I’d like to finally get to some updates I haven’t shared here in the meantime. First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to our first fundraiser. The first support is so very crucial. It shows us (and the world) that there are people who really want to see this project come to life, who are willing to support it by putting their names out there, making financial contributions if they can, and believe this is worthy enough to get their own friends and families involved. We are grateful to everyone who is helping this film happen, those who sent money, those who are connecting us to other women who might be interested in the project, those who suggest possible sources of information or funding… Thank you, on behalf of the whole ToB team. We raised the $4,800 we were aiming for, and closed the fundraiser on gofundme. You can still visit the fundraiser page if you’re interested: http://www.gofundme.com/TurkishoftheBride

The most exciting news (at least for me) is that we now have a definite time frame for Hilal to come to New York. We’ve been planning this for a long time, and I’m thrilled it’s really happening soon. We are now both working on completing all the remaining shoots with a new spring in our step. There is a lot of new Istanbul footage coming that I can’t wait to see! On my end, I’ve focused on applying to the grants and programs that might be a good fit for our film. Grantmakers and sponsors are very wary of directors who don’t already have a proven track record of successful financing or screening behind them. So it’s a toughie, but it’s essential to find the funds for the editing and finishing of the film. Sadly, we are not seeing the kind of support one might hope from Turkish-American organizations. I don’t want to criticize any of them here, I’m sure they are working with limited resources, but in the end, it looks like this film will be made with our own resources, support of family and friends, and maybe an American organization or two. Just funny if you think about it, considering the content and subject matter.

If you have a friend who is married to someone from a different country, or is interested in multi-cultural relationships, or the experience of living as a “foreign bride”, or communicating with a second language – would you recommend this blog to them? (The “follow” button is near the top right) You can also share our facebook page, too. And remember, we love to hear from you! Just write your comments under any post that speaks to you.

Here’s a special treat to all our followers, thanks to our multi-talented interviewee Sarah, who lives in Istanbul. She and her son made these cookies when Hilal and crew visited them for an interview recently, and they were apparently scrumptious. Sarah has adjusted her original recipe, which she learned from her dad, in a way that can be easily baked in Turkey. I thought other Americans who miss home-style baked goods would love to know how she makes them.

photo credit: Art of Dessert

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Sarah’s Bi-Cultural Chocolate Chip Cookies

Preheat oven to 350 F (~175 C)

1/2 c. (1 cube) softened butter
1/2 c. Crisco (I’ve never found Crisco here, and also it’s gross so I just use a full cup of butter because Julia Child assured us all that butter is cool and I’m inclined to agree)
3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar (for these, I’m happy with esmer şeker, but for some things, like gingerbread, I use pekmez to make the esmer şeker taste more like the brown sugar there)
2 eggs
1tsp vanilla (I guess you can find vanilla extract here, but it’s never been worth the trip to the spice pazar or where ever. That vanilyalı şeker works fine (I just dump in a whole packet– why not?), though lately I’ve been using a drop or two from this bottle of vanilla essential oil I got with a set of other oils.)
1/2 tsp water (I never figured out why this is needed)
2 1/4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 1/2 c. chocolate chips (which is about what’s in a bag of Nestle’s)

For the sugar here, I’ve found it’s best to not fill the US measuring cups quite to the top, because the sugar is sweeter and coarser than the American sugar at home. The cookies come out really crisp with all the sugar that’s called for, but a little softer with slightly less.

Anyway, cream the butter/Crisco and sugar together, then add the eggs, vanilla, and water. Give it all a good mix, then add the dry stuff. Give that a good mix, and add the chips. Spoon cookie-sized blobs onto a sheet and bake them for 7-10 minutes.

The cool thing about this recipe is that there’s no need to use a mixer, or two mixing bowls, and you don’t have to be all careful about slowly adding ingredients or making wells in the flour or whatever. I learned it as a kid, and it suits my kid fine just being able to dump things in. I think my dad has been working on perfecting this recipe for years and he’s developed a much fussier baker’s way of going about it. His cookies are way better, but these are just fine for us.

Ideally, there is some dough left over after all the baking, which can be stashed in the fridge to be eaten when the kid is asleep in a sugar coma.

We are now raising money to help us create a strong demo video out of all the interviews we have so far. The demo will enable us to apply for funding from grantmakers and sponsors. If you can pitch in, please visit our “gofundme”page. Thank you!

If you ever lived in, or visited Turkey, one of the things you’re most likely to talk about are its people. You probably have a lot of nice things to say about them – maybe how they’re always ready to help each other, or even strangers; maybe how dedicated they are to their families and friends… You might give examples of the legendary Turkish hospitality… But how about the things that bother you? Or confuse you? Especially after settling there and trying to make it home, what are the things that you notice about Turkish people that you don’t quite get, or like? What kinds of things make it not so easy to live with the Turks?

A few things we’ve heard from our American interviewees are: it’s hard to get used to the stares – people just look at you, if you look different. The crowds, the crowded streets in Istanbul. And one last example is the stereotypes some people believe about women from certain countries.

How shall we put “keep your fingers crossed” in Turkish? Wish us good luck, tie a ribbon to a tree (is there such a thing here?), that sort of thing…This week, we met with a prestigious organization with more than 25 years experience in film and tv production, that’s done numerous shows for PBS, and won multiple awards. This was for “fiscal sponsorship” which is something I found out I need to arrange as I look for grants and funds for the documentary. Many grantmakers here don’t give funds to an individual or to a commercial company, they give to non-profits. So fiscal sponsors are kinds of conduit organizations – instead of everybody trying to set up their own non-profit, you get under the umbrella of these organizations, and become eligible for non-profit money. I won’t tire you with the details, in short, it’s a very important step in securing financial support for the project. And the meeting went very well, very positive. They made me so happy when they said the film’s subject matter and our approach sound quite unique. I’m very lucky to have a wonderful friend who introduced me to the super nice (or direct translation: world-sweet:)) production manager there. It’s so important to not be just some random person when you’re going somewhere. It was so invigorating to be greeted warmly, chat away about film, culture and art, see the office art, and feel like you’re in the right place! Long story short, I shouldn’t be saying this before we make an agreement, but it looks like we’re going to get this fiscal sponsorship. Meanwhile, the Istanbul crew and the NY crew have been busy writing things like project description, expected benefits and outcomes, target audience,etc. then sending them to each other, and rewriting. We’re going to send them to various organizations that support film production, and to potential sponsors, then await the answers. Thats’s where you come in with the ribbons to be tied. Or instead, it would be much better if you forward us the contact info of people who we can approach for financial support for the movie.

This is a super exciting time for us! We’re meeting and getting to know many new people who are interested in the project – amazing women, with amazing stories to share. We’re also getting some great advice and connections to pursue funding for the film. While we’re busy with all that, for those of you who haven’t seen them, here’s the link to segments from some of the interviews we’ve done so far. Please feel free to share and comment:

The jingles of Christmas have stopped in New York, and after a few cold and lazy days, we are about to say Happy New Year! It’s time to think about what we’ve done in the past year, and what we’re going to do in the new year… In terms of our film project, 2012 was a year full of ups and downs, as well as excitement and hope. The spring was dominated by interviews, the summer started with the preview party in NY, then we did shoots in NY and Istanbul focusing on sights from the two cities, and with the addition of new, talented team members, we went over every element in the production and redid the division of tasks. Because of the sad events that took place in the US recently, I feel like I’m not quite into the year end activities that are usually jolly and fun. I’m looking at this on the bright side and telling myself, ok so if you don’t feel like going out and having fun, sit down and get some work done. Let this New Year start this way – we politely declined invitations and will stay home with family. So much to be done, it’s good to be home at my computer, it’s good. Just recently my co-director Hilal and her team translated the budget into Turkish, so now I should finalize the application package for the Turkish Ministry and send it. If we get solid support for our budget, it’s going to be much easier to dedicate to the production the time and care it deserves.

American Bride

Was it the warmth of its people that attracted you to this land? Did you first fall in love with a man, or the unique rhythm of the city? Were you enchanted by İstanbul's silhouette you saw when crossing the Bosphorous? Perhaps, as you had one cup of tea after another, you didn't even notice when exactly you decided to settle here. You brought smiles to the faces of family members when you practiced using your newly learned Turkish words. When you felt like having some peanut butter or bacon, it took a bit of research to find out where to get them. Some of your American friends questioned your sanity when they heard you want to live in Turkey. Maybe even you asked yourself from time to time what you're doing here. But you are here, in Türkiye, living with a Turk...